To celebrate Vikings Live, we have replaced our Roman alphabet with the runic alphabet used by the Vikings, the Scandinavian ‘Younger Futhark’. The ‘Younger Futhark’ has only 16 letters, so we have used some of the runic letters more than once or combined two runes for one Roman letter.

Silver penny of Sven Estridsen

Although coinage in Denmark probably began as
early as the eighth century AD, it only became established around
the year 1000. For the first half of the eleventh century, the
designs were mostly derived from English coins. At first this
reflected the profits of Viking raids, but following the conquest
of England in 1016 by Cnut the Great of Denmark, trading links
between England and Scandinavia became more important than
raiding.

As well as looking
west to England, Scandinavia also had trading links via Russia with
Byzantium and the Islamic world. Large quantities of Byzantine
silver entered Scandinavia, and Byzantine coins were copied in
Denmark from the reign of Harthacnut (1035-42). One particularly
interesting coinage was struck at the mint of Lund by the moneyer
Wulfet, early in the reign of Sven Estridsen, King of
Denmark.

This silver penny
from Lund copies the designs of a gold coin of the Byzantine
emperor Michael IV, struck in 1041. It shows the emperor with the
archangel Michael on one side, and Christ. Gold coins of this type
were probably brought to Scandinavia by Harald Hardruler, king of
Norway (reigned 1047-66), and Sven's rival for the Danish
throne. Harald had served in the Byzantine army and is said in the
sagas to have brought a tremendous treasure with him on his
return.